Ed Sheeran is UK's most pirated artist, Drake tops US list

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A new study into music piracy patterns has revealed singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran as the UK’s most pirated artist. We thought the UK had more refined musical taste!

The new research, published by Musicmetric, also reveals Drake as the most pirated artist in the US. Overall, the data shows that 40 million albums and singles were shared in the UK, while 96.6 million were shared in the US.

Globally, Rihanna was the most downloaded artist, with her latest album Talk That Talk racking up 1.2 million illegal downloads.

Despite, directly affecting his sale, Ed Sheeran proves optimistic about the figures when questioned about it in a BBC interview, stating that downloads are likely to inspire fans to come to his gigs (something that they can’t pirate) from which he earns more money anyway.

However, it’s not a sentiment shared by industry executives.

“A lot of people are getting very rich from stealing other people’s things,” said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI.

“That’s wrong, and we think that musicians deserve to be paid for what they do, just like everyone else.”

You can view a breakdown of the tracks most downloaded locally by putting your postcode into a widget provided by the BBC here. Well done to my neighbours who, illegal piracy activities aside, showed themselves to have great taste by mostly downloading Bob Marley tracks.